


i used to think that i was made out of stone.

by LLReid



Series: kamilah’s forever. [7]
Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Canon LGBTQ Character, Canon LGBTQ Male Character, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Light BDSM, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Romantic Soulmates, Same-Sex Marriage, Sibling Bonding, Teenagers, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Inspired by; Love Again by Dua Lipa.~~~~She heaved a sigh and leaned against the table that the complex research her wife was doing had been set up on. Being the parent of two teenagers was such an odd thing, as one’s teenage years were one of the most transfixing time periods in a person’s life. The years that passed between the ages of thirteen and nineteen could potentially give an individual some of their deepest and longest lasting emotional scars and some of their most enlivening moments. It was a fascinating thing for her to witness; seeing that their children were now old enough to feel like they were truly adults, old enough to make decisions that could affect their lives in a very real and lasting way, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval — and too immature to truly notice their own immaturity being masked by the hormone fuelled teenage bravado.“Two seconds ago they were chewing on everything in sight as their milk fangs were bursting through their gums and screaming at us not to let go as we taught them how to ride their bikes. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to see our babies date.”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Series: kamilah’s forever. [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108751
Comments: 24
Kudos: 40





	i used to think that i was made out of stone.

“Our son has just informed me that he has fallen in love with the mortal boy he has been dating for the past month by the name of Griffin,” Kamilah said as a means of announcing her presence as she waltzed into her wife’s crowded and highly secretive laboratory in the bowels of Raines Corp. “Now, I don’t care a bit that his first love is a mortal with bright blue hair to match his braces. However, I find the name to be somewhat concerning. He is either a crack smoking hippy in the making or the sort to receive a DUI on a CitiBike and there is no in between—“

“Are those not one in the same?,” Anastasia murmured without looking up from her microscope. “And hello to you, too, darling. Yes, how was your day? Mine was fine, thanks for asking—“

“Hi,” she huffed. 

She cleared her throat at the sight of her wife in her white lab coat, with every set of eyes in the room locked on her. Even if she wasn’t married to her and she wasn’t the one she’d come specifically to see, she would’ve noticed her right away. No, it wasn’t her chiselled, impossibly beautiful face. Or the coppery waves of shiny hair that hung all the way to her waist. It wasn’t the slim, ridiculously sexy lab coat she wore, hugging her lean shoulders over the top of the matching off-white satin skirt and form fitting top. It was the way she stared into the microscope she was peering into. The confident way she carried herself as she flitted around the station she was at. She didn’t saunter. She didn’t amble. She stood at the centre of attention, and let the other people buzz around her like overly excited flies. Her stance was so straight and sure that despite being very petite, her presence seemed like it filled the entire room.

That goddamn lab coat did things to her that it shouldn’t have. So much so that it took her a few seconds to catch her breath before she could bring herself to focus on the rant she’d came to unload when her mental breakdown text messages had gone unnoticed.

It was both a blessing a and a curse to desire a woman in a physical manner like this. Her mind, her knees, her entire fucking soul was weakened by the mere sight of her.

“Annie, my love, you ought to be more concerned—“

“Should I?”

“The kids stopped by my office before heading to the penthouse after school with a box of neon green hair dye, and Jax informed me he intends to dye his hair with only his highly distractible sister for help,” she lamented. “I offered my services and to have Mathew book an actual professional hair dressing mortal to assist, only to be told his hair would be a surprise for us both when we got home tonight! Our son is literally dyeing his hair the colour of a highlighter in order to look like that singer they like from the year 2020... Billie something.”

“Billie Eilish.” Anastasia snorted, finally looking up at her and ignoring the seasoned employees and young interns who were doing their best not to laugh at the situation. “Sweetheart. He’s sixteen. Self expression is a good thing at this age, he’s finding himself— and this poor mortal boy’s name doesn’t mean he’s a crack smoking hippy.”

“Name one functional member of society named Griffin that you know of.”

Anastasia froze midway as she reached for the next slide in the sequence that she was analysing with her employees, her eyes widening. Even that big brain of hers couldn’t think of one mortal named Griffin that wasn’t chaos personified.

“I’ll wait,” she huffed, smiling at her smugly.

“It— You— Oh stop,” Anastasia chuckled as she resumed her work. “We both said that when Jax and Zahra started dating we’d do our best to be as chill about it as possible. If we want them to keep being so comfortable talking to us about this stuff that they think nothing of letting us know what’s going on with them and come to us for advice instead of using the internet or asking their friends, then we can’t jump to conclusions about the people they’re dating before we’ve even met them properly.” She paused. “If we get bad vibes once we’ve met this kid, then we can start being concerned... but for right now the relationship is something very innocent and it seems to be making Jax happy— he wouldn’t stop smiling yesterday because he held his boyfriend’s hand the whole way through his Spanish class at school. Okay? It’s nothing we need to be concerned with right now.”

She heaved a sigh and leaned against the table that the complex research her wife was doing had been set up on. Being the parent of two teenagers was such an odd thing, as one’s teenage years were one of the most transfixing time periods in a person’s life. The years that passed between the ages of thirteen and nineteen could potentially give an individual some of their deepest and longest lasting emotional scars and some of their most enlivening moments. It was a fascinating thing for her to witness; seeing that their children were now old enough to feel like they were truly adults, old enough to make decisions that could affect their lives in a very real and lasting way, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval — and too immature to truly notice their own immaturity being masked by the hormone fuelled teenage bravado.

“Two seconds ago they were chewing on everything in sight as their milk fangs were bursting through their gums and screaming at us not to let go as we taught them how to ride their bikes. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to see our babies date.”

Anastasia found her hand without looking up from her microscope and gave it a tight squeeze, caressing her thumb with her own to placate her. “Neither will I— but I was just barely six years older than they are now when I met you. In the six years between my sixteenth birthday and my twenty-second, I had the two other most significant relationships I’ve ever had— they’re growing up... and we’ve raised two level headed, kind hearted people. I trust them to be much more sensible than either of us were at that age.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and shuddered at the mere thought of Jax or Zahra inheriting her or her wife’s streak of teenage rebellion. “How old were you when you met Samantha Dalton?”

“I started nannying for her between my college classes at NYU when I was nineteen and then when I transferred to Belvoire I met Ina Kingsley at twenty and was with her for a year-and-a-half,” Anastasia said, “and I met you five months after breaking it off with her.”

She shuddered at the mere thought of either of their children winding up in such serious relationships any time soon— at the thought of them potentially getting themselves into complex situations like the one Anastasia had found herself in with Samantha Dalton... or even Ina Kingsley. It didn’t matter that she knew that her wife counted Ina as her first real love, or that Kingsley had been good to her despite the unbalanced power dynamic in their relationship, the idea that either of their children could potentially find themselves in an entanglement with a teacher or a much older adult in a position of power over them didn’t sit well with her at all.

None of the parenting books had done a damn thing to prepare her for the dread she felt when their children had decided they were ready to enter the world of romantic relationships. She knew only too well that there were a lot of dangerous people out there and the thought of either of them getting hurt or taken advantage of in any way made her want to separate heads from shoulders.

“If vampires could have strokes, I think I would have one the moment either of our children came home on the arm of an individual more than two thousand years their senior— regardless of how old they were.” She shook her head in dismay. “As much as I disliked my in laws... I can understand your parent’s initial horror at the relationship between us now. My god, you’d have to physically restrain me nowadays if an ancient vampire had to waltz into our home with their arm around one of our babies!”

At that Anastasia started laughing, as did a number of the mortal scientists watching her work and listening to their conversation with rapt attention. 

“I mean, I think I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I’d to ever tell them somebody was too old for them,” Anastasia cringed, her eyes sparkling wildly as she glanced up at her. “First, I somehow end up in bed with my boss. Then my anthro professor. Then a two thousand year old CEO—“

“Have I ever mentioned that your taste in women is highly concerning?,” she teased. 

Anastasia winked at her. “My highly concerning taste in women worked out pretty well for you, dork. Reel it in.”

She snorted. “Must I?”

The Bloodkeeper shook her head in amusement as she stood up and stepped away from the microscope. She said something so scientific sounding that it may as well have been a different language and the employees all gave her a round of applause as she looped her arm through hers and began leading her off towards the door without so much as a second glance over her shoulder as the scientists began fluttering around the lab again.

“Dare I ask what sort of groundbreaking discovery you’ve just made?”

“It’s the new cannabis and antioxidant based immunotherapy I’m working on as an alternative to traditional chemotherapy and radiation treatments in the fight against certain cancers— the one I’ve told you about over dinner a few times,” Anastasia said excitedly. “I came up with the idea after that little girl with Leukaemia used her Make A Wish day to be a scientist a Raines Corp for a day— it started out as just a haematological cancer treatment but I’ve recently been testing it on certain brain tumours that have been deemed incurable for centuries—“

“And... you’ve cured them?,” she stammered.

Anastasia shook her head. “Cured? Not yet... but I have succeeded in shrinking them considerably and proving that the majority of traditional chemotherapy treatments do nothing but add to a lot terminally ill mortal’s suffering once their disease has progressed past a certain point— this new treatment not only doesn’t make them as frail as chemo does whilst slowing the progression of their illness, but it can meaningfully extend their lives for up to three years and allow them to actually live rather than sentence them to slowly wither away in a hospital bed.”

“That’s wonderful, Annie. That’ll help a lot of people.”

“I hope so,” Anastasia breathed. “That’s the goal— and I plan on controlling the distribution of it myself. Everyone who could benefit from it will get it straight from me with no involvement from Big Pharma and I won’t make a profit.”

“You’re planning on giving it away for free?”

Anastasia nodded. “I think it’s wrong to profit off of dying people’s suffering. The mortal medical industry is a multi-billion-dollar business that literally treats adequate medical treatment like it’s a luxury and not a basic human right— Raines Corp will have no part in that.”

She leaned in and pressed her lips to her wife’s temple as they walked. At this point, she’d long since stopped being shocked when Anastasia solved some age old scientific problem or disproved a theory that had once been taken as science fact. It didn’t matter what branch of science or mathematics that she devoted her attention to, she was a leader in the industry who’d expanded Raines Corp to more than twelve times the company it had been when Adrian had named her as his successor as CEO when she’d been only days away from turning twenty-three.

It was really no wonder that their children always wound up getting top grades in school, given that their mother was as smart as she was.

“So... you’d stab an ancient vampire who dated one of the kids, would you?,” Anastasia teased as they began the walk home through the Manhattan streets bustling with rush hour traffic.

She huffed and tried to draw her mind away from the fact they were likely going to find one of their bathrooms stained irreparably with neon green hair dye when they arrived home— and that was despite the fact that she’d warned both teenagers to be careful and asked their dear old Auntie Lily to instruct them what to do over FaceTime. Either that or they’d arrive home to find their son with such messed up hair that shaving his head would be the only fix.

“Without a second thought,” she smirked. “To think of anybody so much as looking twice at our children is a strange thought— I absolutely want them both to have what we have and recognise that it could be a few thousand years before they find it... and that they’re realistically not going to just sit on the sidelines of life until that happens.” She laughed weakly. “But I’m protective, damn it. If anybody breaks our babies hearts, the impulse would be to break their legs before stabbing them a few hundred times in the eyes before finally putting them out of their misery.”

Anastasia giggled like she had the day she’d met her and rolled her eyes. Kamilah remembered well how it had felt to meet her wife for the first time all those years ago with clue what would unfold. Even now, she was a planet tilted off its axis. A brighter sun had appeared in her system with no warning, pulling her away from the world she knew before. All else paled in comparison to the magnificent woman on her arm that she had been given the privilege of loving for decades.

“I’m not going to lie, despite the fact I would be the biggest hypocrite, I think I’d initially have a heart attack if either of them had to bring home somebody more than two thousand years older than them,” Anastasia smirked, “and I’d definitely waste no time in rifling through their thoughts to make sure they not only had good intentions... but a good heart, too.”

“You couldn’t do that when we met—“

“I didn’t have to,” Anastasia said quickly, kissing her cheek. Swimming in the oceans of her eyes Kamilah saw trust. Complete trust. It was a gift, a precious one, and it humbled her still. “I always knew you weren’t the big bad wolf you tried so hard to make yourself out to be,” she continued, “and if either of our children found someone even remotely like you I’d be happy with that.”

Her eyes widened in horror and she gave her a dirty look. Then she broke into the bubbly champagne laugh that only her wife could manage to elicit from her. “Someone like me post meeting you could potentially be alright, so long as they’re over the emotionally distant brooding phase of their constant existential crisis. The me before you loved me and the light found me was a horror I’d kill with my own bare hands had she to so much as look in the direction of our children.”

Anastasia started laughing. “I’m a good influence on you is what you’re saying, hmm?”

“You’re more than that.” She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her the sort of smile that very few people ever received from her. When she was in the company of anybody besides her wife, her children, or their family, her face bore the pinched, taut look and shadowed eyes of someone constantly in pain, but in the presence of those she loved she softened considerably. “You’re my saving grace.”

There was once a time that Kamilah wouldn’t have dreamed of saying such a thing to another person. A time when she wasn’t even sure she’d been capable of it. However, Anastasia really was the exception to every rule that she’d ever set for herself... and every word she’d ever spoken in her presence had been true. Her life was pain and terror before her. She quietened the horrible voices in the back of her mind. She had given her hope that she could survive and find redemption. She had been terrified and alone, and she changed all that. She brought the beauty and hope back into her life.

“I love you, Kami,” Anastasia whispered and turned her face into her throat as they walked, nuzzling her. Inhaling. Tasting her skin with her tongue. 

She hummed happily and tilted her face up to press a gentle kiss to her lips. Even now, after sharing an uncountable number of kisses, kissing her wasn't just a kiss. It was a full-body, mid-altering experience. A ball of fire rolled through her stomach, catching on the wings of the butterflies darting around in there and setting them up in a blaze. She smiled as Anastasia’s grin brushed her own, lips just barely touching as they smiled. And when she spoke, her lips brushed hers with each and every whispered word, “I love you, too, baby.”

“We promised to help the kids with their applications for those weekend jobs going at Starbucks tonight, remember,” Anastasia said before she could say anything else. 

“I remember,” she nodded. “I must admit I was pleasantly surprised when they told us they wished to start working because they thought jobs would look good on their college applications. I assumed they’d ask one of us for a job but the fact they want to achieve it on their own— is it wrong for me to be proud of us for raising them in such a way that they’re not content to simply enjoy the blessings we give them and expect things to be handed to them?”

Anastasia giggled softly and shook her head. “That was our worry when I was pregnant, remember... and I think we’ve done a damn good job at giving them a proper perspective on the world— but that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to these applications. Companies expect sixteen year old kids to have like ten years experience and their entire immortal lives planned out.”

She hummed in agreement. “I was so impressed when Mathew interviewed to be my assistant when he was nineteen and had the balls to tell me he was only interviewing with me because he needed to eat and pay rent that I hired him on the spot. Employers definitely ask too much of people these days... and I know I speak for everyone when I say that there’s nothing worse than interviewing somebody who acts like a deranged idiot by showing too much enthusiasm for the job.”

Anastasia snorted. “Headaches from using my abilities? I can deal with them. Existential terror at the possibility of destroying my own mind? Pretty much routine at this point. Doing anything with job applications and resumes? Now that is brutal.”

“I’ll pour you an extra large glass of wine with dinner then, my love.”

“And that is why I love you so much,” Anastasia beamed.

“Because I find it incredibly amusing when you get yourself wine drunk?”

“You can’t even talk about me getting myself wine drunk after you got yourself drunk enough to get in a fender bender in one of Lula’s Barbie jeeps at The Shadow Den—“

She cut Anastasia off by playfully covering her mouth with her palm. “Shhh. We don’t speak of that incident, or anything Drunk Kamilah does for that matter.”

Anastasia licked her palm and wiggled her eyebrows around theatrically, and for that she teasingly tugged on the pearl necklace around her neck that she’d fastened there that morning. It was one of a number of extremely discreet day collars she’d had made specially for her that looked just like a regular necklace that she could wear everywhere and have it be appropriate.

“Behave yourself,” she smirked, removing her hand from her mouth.

Anastasia quickly pushed herself up on her tip toes and stole another kiss. It was a kiss meant to set her ablaze. And as always, it worked, and was only made worse by her teasing, “Make me, why don’t you?”

“I assure you, Annie, the moment Zahra leaves for rehearsals for the school musical and Jax heads to orchestra practice I fully intend to have you at my mercy,” she sighed wistfully, her dark eyes sparkling. “It isn’t often we have the whole penthouse to ourselves... and it has been much too long since you’ve—“

“Been collared on the end of a leash at your beck and call?,” Anastasia chirped with so much excitement she was practically vibrating. “Yeah, I agree. I’ve been such a brat lately, isn’t it shocking? Oops. My bad, I guess. I totally haven’t been misbehaving on purpose and giving you a list of things you can punish me for. Nope— and I want to wear my collar with the rubies on it, by the way.”

The smuggest smile spread across her face and she drew her into another kiss, chuckling against her lips. The scent of arousal pouring off her was almost enough to make her fangs — and everything else — pop out. “You’ll be the death of me, woman.”

Anastasia batted her eyelashes like the picture of innocence as they wandered into the Ahmanet skyscraper and started off towards the private elevator, ignoring the employees that gave them a very respectful berth. “I have no idea what you mean,” the Bloodkeeper smiled, her voice a sensual, confiding whisper, and Kamilah clung to every rapturous word.

She withdrew the arm that had been resting protectively around her slight shoulders on the walk home and put her hand in her’s, entwining their fingers together, and she smiled. It was as if for her, the sun came out. It didn’t have to be said that her smile took Anastasia’s breath and made her inexplicably happy because, she had always known that Kamilah rarely smiled for anybody else and each one she managed to elicit from her so easily was like a gift.

“Mom! Mama!,” Zahra beamed the moment the elevator doors opened at the penthouse. Their sixteen year old daughter looked the way she always did after a day at school; her thick ginger hair that hung halfway down her back slightly disheveled, her white polo shirt with the school logo on it untucked from her black skirt and her grey cardigan hanging askew, the sheer black tights with little hearts on them she was wearing somehow torn and laddered from the right knee all the way up her thigh and halfway down her calf— but what stood out the most was her hands. The fact they were covered in blue ballpoint ink tattoos wasn’t in itself unusual... but the fact her fingers were neon green was unmissable.

All she and Anastasia could do was stare at her in awe for a good few seconds.

“Sweetheart,” Kamilah breathed, mentally counting backwards from fifty to calm herself down, “tell me you wore gloves whilst helping your brother?”

Zahra laughed nervously. “We didn’t actually realise we were supposed to wear gloves until Auntie Lily called to see what we were up to and it— we didn’t know hair dye stained skin and— Auntie Lily says to tell you she’s in Aruba and won’t be back until our skin turns it’s normal colour again.”

“Is Jax—“

“He’s worse than me,” Zahra snorted as the three of them wandered inside. “The creative team of the school musical won’t be pleased with me. Princess Ariel doesn’t have green hands— like, if we were doing Seussical or The Grinch it would probably be fine but this may be a problem considering I’m supposed to be a mermaid princess.”

“Use nail polish remover,” Anastasia said gently. “Soak your fingers in it and then rub a cotton pad over the stains. It might take you a few tries because it’s so bright but if you keep working at it then it’ll be gone before opening night.”

“Promise?,” Zahra squealed, practically melting into the ground in relief.

“Cross my heart,” Anastasia smiled.

“Ta-da!,” Jax beamed as he waltzed out of his room to show them his new hair.

The colour was certainly... bright. Very bright. But Kamilah was immediately glad to see that he hadn’t chosen to simply dye his roots green or cover his entire head in the stuff, instead he’d only dyed two long strands that framed his face the colour and left his natural raven colour everywhere else.

“I think it looks sick,” Zahra concluded before anybody else had the chance to speak. “Especially because you wear all black all the time— you look exactly like what a modern day teenage vampire who lives his life like a character in The Matrix should look like.”

Jax blushed and then turned to them expectedly.

“It looks great,” Anastasia smiled. “You’ve actually done a really great job and the colour compliments your eyes and your skin tone nicely.”

“Indeed,” Kamilah agreed. “I like the way you’ve done it, just framing your face with the colour. It suits you a great deal.”

Their son seemed to puff up at the praise. “Once Zahra’s done with The Little Mermaid we’re gonna do the same in her hair but with bright pink.”

“Like this pink,” Zahra clarified as she wiggled her chipped nails in their faces. “I’ve been researching vintage hair dye trends and noticed that in like 2012 or 2013 people did this thing called dip dyeing, I think I’m gonna do it like that.”

Anastasia laughed softly. “I did the dip dye thing in high school with blue and then with purple— man, those were the days.”

“Just wear gloves next time, please,” Kamilah chuckled.

“Okay— oh! I have an important question that I need to ask you both,” Jax said. “It’s for school. English class actually.”

“Oh my god,” Zahra snorted. “You’re not really gonna ask them that—“

“It’s an important question—“

“Should we sit down for this?,” Anastasia laughed.

“Fuck sitting down,” Zahra snorted, “you should lay down and crack open a bottle of wine.”

“Language,” Kamilah half sighed-half laughed as she and Anastasia sat down on the couch. She’d given up trying stop their children swearing like truckers a long time ago.

“Okay, so we’re reading and analysing books that were really big in pop culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century,” Jax said as he sat on the floor in front of them. “And we just finished The Hunger Games series and have unfortunately gotten around to starting Twilight—“

“They’re making you read that drivel and calling it an education?,” Kamilah interjected. “We do not pay upwards of $50,000 each year to have them educate you with Twilight.”

Sending their children to a mixed mortal and vampire high school had been a good choice that had opened them up to the world outside of the close knit vampire community that resided in the city. However, the whole schooling institution and teenage culture absolutely baffled Kamilah. It was only high school after all, but she knew that it would definitely be one of the most bizarre periods in their children’s immortal lives. How anyone could manage to come through that time well adjusted on any level was an absolute miracle in her eyes.

“It’s hilarious. We convinced the mortals in our class that we sparkle without our daylight rings,” Zahra snorted, “and that we don’t sleep. We also might have said that our family is like, the real life Volturi—“

“You what?,” laughed Anastasia.

Zahra shrugged. “Mortals are easy to convince of this stuff because they want to believe it so much. We plan on keeping the joke up forever.”

She cast her wife a withering glance and just barley resisted the urge to start hitting the wine. Twilight. The very novels and movies that had traumatised her into believing their children were going to tear her beloved apart from the inside out before Anastasia had gotten pregnant. 

Brilliant, she thought. Bloody brilliant.

“So my question is: If vampires are so passionate and depicted as sexy beasts in every single mortal written novel in that time period because we feed on life force, why are zombies not depicted as the scholars of the coterie world?,” Jax laughed. “It makes no sense because technically speaking, the fictional mortal created vampire and zombie are both dead, and both feed on mortal life forces, right? So why did the whole vampire genre take off into a million different things and Zombies basically got The Walking Dead and that one Brad Pitt movie?”

She looked at Anastasia expectantly. “I’m deferring this one straight to you.”

“You’re deferring this one straight to me?”

“Indeed,” she nodded. “You’re the genius in our midst to whom we all turn to for answers regarding these pressing matters. Take it away, baby.”

“Thanks for the support,” Anastasia quipped, rolling her eyes as she tried not to laugh.

She winked at her. “It’s what I’m here for.”

Anastasia made a soft humming sound and instead of simply laughing the question off, Kamilah could tell she was actually thinking about it seriously. Over the years this had become somewhat of a family game they’d play over the dinner table most nights; they’d ask Anastasia the most obscure questions they could think of that most people wouldn’t even begin to answer... and she’d somehow always manage to think of some sort of answer to everything she was asked. There was nothing the woman couldn’t pretend like she was an expert in.

“One of the main difference between the fictional zombie and vampire lies in their degree of cognition,” she said after only a few seconds. “The fictional vampire was based on our kind by the mortal writer Bram Stoker, who created his Count Dracula after observing us and noticing that we weren’t simply bloodthirsty beasts with no souls. The zombie is typically the result of a mutated virus or a science experiment gone wrong who ushers in some kind of apocalyptic event. A brainless, soulless creature that is little more than an animated decaying corpse that is usually capable of spreading the disease that killed the person through its bite. They feed by tearing into mortals flesh and actually ripping them apart, whereas vampires only drink their blood, and that can easily be included in a romantic scene.” She paused. “Even the most creative writer would have trouble finding the romanticism in Zombies, I think. Whereas it’s fairly simply to romanticise vampires because we’re not all that different from mortals down at our cores, but tend to be portrayed more sophisticatedly and morally grey than them, and as a writer that would be an attraction that could lead to a thousand different plots or complexities in the development of certain characters.”

Jax beamed from ear to ear at her answer. “Thanks mom. Our English teacher will be impressed with that answer tomorrow.”

“Did I just do your homework again?,” Anastasia snorted.

Jax blushed as the beloved pet cat, Loki, that he had adopted six years earlier crawled onto his lap. He lifted the jet black Bombay up and they both simultaneously fluttered their eyes at her. “I mean... kinda. But as a Thank You I’ll cook that carbonara that you like for dinner and I’ll even do the dishes before I have to go to orchestra.”

“I’ll change my answer up so it’s not too obvious I copy you like 99% of the time,” Zahra nodded, flashing the finger guns signal Lily had taught her as a child as her Bengal cat, Thor, swiftly appeared after his brother. “And because I’m so nice I’ll put the dishes away but I’m not cooking because, goddammit, I’m a modern woman and I don’t belong in a kitchen.”

From the coffee table in the middle of the living room, Jax grabbed a handful of gummy bears out of a bowl that somebody had obviously stolen from Kamilah’s secret stash for their after school snack and started tossing them at Zahra. She tried to catch them in her mouth but wound up missing more than she caught. 

“You suck at this,” he said as they all laughed.

“But I’m fantastic at other things.” In a flash Zahra began using her abilities to freeze the gummy bears mid air and float them to her mouth. “Like cheating at this game.”

They all started laughing and Kamilah resisted the urge to point out that she was going to be applying to work at Starbucks, which was technically a job in the food service industry and would involve a fair amount of food preparation. 

She rested her hand on her wife’s thigh and Anastasia looked at her as they laughed at the battle of psychic wills that erupted over a few gummy bears, her glacial blue eyes meeting her own, and she saw a heat and a happiness in them that she felt reflecting in her own. She was married to the love of her life. Their teenagers were confident, happy kids. She’d even somehow been talked into having two pet cats that frequently invaded her personal space! 

There was simply so much to be happy about these days that the sadness that had followed her like a shadow for the majority of her life was nothing more than a distant memory. The days in which she’d known so intimately that it had physically ached just how empty a creature could be whilst filled to the brim with drowning agony now nothing more than a shadow of an old nightmare. 

“Are you seriously making us dinner or should we order in?,” Kamilah asked Jax. “It’s been a long day and I’m starving— and since my last packet of gummy bears has obviously been consumed, I have nothing to eat.”

“I’m seriously making dinner and I’ll pick up more gummy bears on the way home from orchestra,” Jax nodded as he hauled Zahra to her feet. “Uncle Adrian says real men know how to cook and care for themselves, and Nikhil said it too. So it’s important that I do it... being a classy guy is my teenage rebellion.”

“That’s great for you but I’m not a classy guy, I’m a raging bitch and I’m completely fine with that!,” Zahra whined. “I’ve inherited the lousy cooking genes from these two, who can’t even make ramen without setting something on fire. You’re not seriously expecting me to help you?”

“We can run your lines while you help me, idiot,” Jax smirked.

Zahra’s face scrunched up but she relented with a sigh. “Just don’t do the dumb Australian accent for Prince Eric that you did last night. It’s so bad that it’s offensive to Australians everywhere.”

“Okay,” Jax nodded as they walked away. “Only do it for Ursula. Got it.”

All Kamilah could do was shake her head in utter bemusement as the kids left the room. There was no point in her trying to defend her horrendous cooking. Adrian was the one she turned to for answers in the kitchen whenever she couldn’t pay somebody to ensure she had edible food, and he was like the MacGyver of the kitchen. He could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Both she and Anastasia, however...

They’d once burnt an egg to a crisp. A hard boiled egg. To this day she still did not know how.

“I give it ten minutes before somebody flips out,” Anastasia snorted.

“That’s much too generous. I’ll bet seven minutes,” she challenged. “If he does the Russian accent for the angry king with the pitch fork or the Swedish one for the yellow fish then it could be as little as five minutes.”

They shared a soft laugh and sat back to relax for a moment before changing out of their work clothes. Of all the modern notions Kamilah had ever entertained, the worst was that she’d ever believed that domesticity was dull. That she’d ever believed the home was dead decorum and routine; that outside was the adventure and variety. But the truth was that home was the only place of true liberty. A home filled with family was not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it was the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.

“Kami,” Anastasia breathed, her eyes glued to the screen of her phone. “Lily is literally going to Aruba.”

“She what?”

Anastasia turned her phone around to show off a picture of Lily sprawled out on one of the chairs on Adrian’s jet with the caption: ‘Fleeing the country before Sugar Mama Sayeed sees the state of her bathroom.’

Without a word, she and Anastasia both shot to their feet and sped off towards the bathroom that the twins shared, freezing in horror the moment they saw the state of it. The shower floor was green. No less than five fluffy white towels were green. Jax’s white school polo was green around the neck. There was hair dye in the sink. Hair dye on the fixtures. A green handprint on the wall that had obviously been made worse when somebody had attempted to wipe it.

Teenagers. Everything somehow always turned out so apocalyptically when they were involved.

“Holy shit,” Anastasia concluded on the verge of laughing in disbelief. “They didn’t even use that much dye.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I think we now know why they’re making us dinner.”

She drew in a breath and turned to face her. “I think the new rule is that there is no more experimenting with hair dye unless someone with a pinch of good sense is home. This is— It— I need a drink. Were they just planning on keeping the door closed for the rest of their lives and hoping that we didn’t see this?”

“Teenagers,” Anastasia huffed. 

“Bloody teenagers,” she breathed.

~ fin.


End file.
